I demonstrated peppermint Linux on the acer Aspire netbook, this is a lighter Linux mint based distro. Then a quick look at Android booting from a USB stick on the Acer aspire netbook.

Peppermint Linux – a mint based ‘cloud’ distro

From the peepermint website:- “The biggest breath of fresh air in the past few years have been Ubuntu and Linux Mint with their commitment to community and offering a welcome place for all to explore.

The notion that in order to use, enjoy and be proficient with Linux is that you will need uber-geek hacking skills is completely False. And, this is just the stigma surrounding Linux that needs to be erased once and for all with Peppermint. There hasn’t been one person we have shown Peppermint OS to who hasn’t understood how to operate it as a desktop environment by just putting it in front of them and turning it on…

Team Peppermint is committed to welcoming new Linux users, offering them a product that is fast, easy to understand, and offering them an arena to experiment with Linux and all the while offering avenues to educate them further. Empowering the planet with Linux is our goal. Will you join us in this journey? We certainly hope so….”

Booting from as USB stick on acer aspire one, takes 20 seconds from the grub prompt to the desktop, but wireless is not ready.

Booting from SSD on acer aspire, takes 12 seconds from the grub prompt to the desktop, but wireless is not ready.

Create a bootable USB stick from an iso

There are some open source tools that can convert an iso into a bootable USB disk, sayLinux Live USB Creator ( LiLi ) — officially support Android-x86UNetbootin Multi-boot

To boot other operating systems, you have to add items for them to /grub/menu.lst. For example, to boot Windows, add the following:

title Windowsrootnoverify (hd0,0)chainloader +1This assumes the Windows is installed to the first partition of the first hard disk. Or you need to change rootnoverify to the appropriate value. See Grub manual for details.

Updated (2010-10): Since froyo-x86, if there is an NTFS partition in the installed disk, the installer will ask if you want to create a boot item for Windows